Violence of law

This special issue of Justice, Power and Resistance interrogates the violence of law, drawing and expanding on discussions in the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control's 51st annual conference, held in Turku in September 2023.Critically exploring 'the role of law in violence production and the ways in which law permits or fails to prevent harmful practices beyond their legal qualification', this conference challenged participants to think critically about the role and functions of law in the context of 'multi-faceted and interconnected forms' of suffering.It invited reflection on the functions of law in amplifying levels of social injustice, and it explored the intended and unintended consequences of legal interventions that seek resolutions to social injustice.These are challenges that the articles in this special issue meet.In 'We feel that warm breath in our necks': experiences and impacts of criminalisation of environmental activism in Belgium, Bram Visser and Brunilda Pali (2025) examine the criminalisation of Greenpeace activists occupying a gas terminal at the port of Zeebrugge.Drawing on in-depth empirical research, including interviews with activists and defence lawyers, this article makes clear the functions of criminalisation in attempts to disrupt and crush contemporary and future forms of civil disobedience.Meanwhile, in 'It's set up for them, not us!'The under criminalisation of the Hunting Act 2004 and the intersection of original criminal selectivity, policing and classism, Tracey Davanna (2025) examines the police response to foxhunting in one English county.The under-criminalisation of foxhunting, it is demonstrated, enables a perpetuation of violence and harms by hunts and their supporters, with the police operating to 'maintain hegemonic practices positioned to economic power, a relationship that is understood by the intersection of original criminal selectivity, the law and classism'.In Towards a digital zemiology, Jessica Elias (2025) explores how user-generated data is exploited to embed digital surveillance and buttress corporate interests and power.With legal frameworks allowing for the conduct of surveillance corporations to continue without major resistance, the article shows, the digital operates as a new frontier of harm production.This intersection of law and harm is further explored in Hanna Scott and Anders Roos' (2025) article, The Upper Secondary School Act as legal violence in the Swedish welfare state: 'I came to Sweden just so I could live'.Exploring